Twitter adds features to curb online abuse

US-based micro-blogging site Twitter Inc has added new filtering tools to curb online abuse, hours after the social media network Facebook and technology major Google launched steps to ban fake news from their sites.

The US-based social media giants had been under attack by critics alleging that a particular set of opinions posted which echoed and were shared by thousands of users swayed the recent US presidential election which saw Republican Party's Donald Trump win.

Twitter has been trying to tackle the anti-abuse issue for a long time now.

In an official blog on Tuesday, it said, "The amount of abuse, bullying, and harassment we have seen across the Internet has risen sharply over the past few years. These behaviours inhibit people from participating on Twitter, or anywhere. Abusive conduct removes the chance to see and share all perspectives around an issue, which we believe is critical to moving us all forward."

Twitter already had a feature called 'mute' which enables users to mute accounts they don't want to see tweets from.

The US-listed company has now expanded it to 'notifications'.

"We are enabling you to mute keywords, phrases, and even entire conversations you don't want to see notifications about, rolling out to everyone in the coming days," the blog said.